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Home > Fellowship Plaza Apt. A202 |
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Mr. John Jerome
I lived for many years without any health insurance. I used to have it until 1993 where my wife worked had insurance, and my wife and I were able to get regular checkup. But when I had moved to Los Angeles to plant a church (July o 1993) I had no health insurance for 6years. My wife worked in a food court with set amount of time so there were no insurance provided, and as I was planting this church there was no way the church would provide me the insurance cover. At this period of time my wife had a unknown sickness and was rushed to the emergency room to be treated (a complication on the 1978 gall bladder surgery) and after getting discharged, I remember I had paid off the hospital fee in installment payments.
Once, I had a problem being constantly sweaty with high fevers. Since I had no insurance, I dared not to go to the hospital. I bought a very strong fever reducing medicine but they were ineffective. After few days of pain, I was introduced by someone to Dr. Elder HongSik Kim. After doing a check up, it was notified that I had a severe issue with my kidney. After having a quick emergency procedure, I had the outpatient treatment but he would only charge for the laboratory research and nothing else. I had written an essay about this while back.
While serving as the superintendant for the Korean District, I was able to use the insurance provided by our denomination. After my resignation I used a “Cobra Program” which was basically low budget insurance. The problem was after that. The insurance fee which my wife and I had taken together was $1,200.00 per month! I had thought of me and my wife possibly visiting the hospital more often as we get older and was forced to use this insurance for while. At that time, my wife had suffered a mild stroke and was treated.
After moving to San Jose from New Jersey I had called the insurance company to get a new one, turns out the insurance cost in San Jose was $200 more expansive! My daughter looked around and found from Kaiser Hospital with an insurance of $1,000. A personal insurance is very expansive as oppose to a company or a organization’s medical insurance. I still think it’s a miracle that I was able to have insurance even with a low income. After turning 65, I was able to finally get Medicare. This is so that every month I pay Social Security Administration $90, I would have to co-pay for and hospital visits. But if I am to be admitted to the hospital or the cost of the treatment goes up high, I would have to pay upwards to 20% of the fee. If I get in the special senior program I wouldn’t have to pay for all that but the overall price is higher by $90. The money is automatically withdrawn by the SSA. So I was to pay SSA every month along with my wife’s fee of $360.
Neither my wife nor I had jobs that required a lot of taxing, so the amount of return from the federal tax return was near minimal. The government knowing this told me that I had the Medical benefit. With this benefit, I would get all the medical coverage by the State. About 4 years ago, so Kaiser had requested for the SSA tax being paid off, however that case was not solved with getting rid of the debt.
Back then, I used to just look at it at a glance and passed it off. But after moving into the senior apartment, while renewing my tenant, the manager told me the insurance finance had huge errors.
As I had both the Medicare and the Medical insurance, Kaiser apparently made it impossible for the SSA to give me refunds. The manager had called many places to solve this but to no avail.
Since my son in law takes care of finance in the hospital I asked him to take a look at this issue for me but stopped after shot time because of no progress. But during the past August, the mandatory renewing of my tenant was due so when I met the manager, the problem of health insurance came up again, and kindly provided me address of places where I can solve this matter. So that early morning I headed to the office of the address that was in downtown San Jose, apparently that duty was moved to another office so I had to go there instead. When I went to that other place, the people in office said they do not have enough information so it would be advised to call the SSA office instead. After hearing my story out, the office said they would have to place a call with the Medicare. I knew trying to solve this kind of issue with only phone calls would be difficult and near impossible. But the phone call was the only way out. They gave me the name of the government agency and the phone number, and that would be able to solve this issue. The number was highlighted in yellow.
I had spent many days praying to how to solve this issue.
But on the 2nd of September around 2AM in the morning, I couldn’t sleep so I had come out into the living room to pray earnestly for the help from God. When I had finished praying, a ray of hope in thought had passed like a flash. The SSA had given me a paper listing of different agencies to call and after quickly searching and finding that paper, there was one agency called SOURCEWISE which was run by Santa Clara County for the seniors. In the parenthesis there was a paragraph about appointment after hearing my story, so please give us a call first.
On the 3rd of September as soon as it was 9AM in the morning, I called to the office and a rather elderly man had picked up in a kind voice. After hearing my phone call, the adviser was Mr. John Jerome. After examining all the necessary documents (including my social security cards, all the files from SSA), the problem my wife and I had been apparently needed to be solved as soon as possible. Mr. Jerome called the Santa Clara Board of Health. After having a very long conversation with the person in charge, he opened a path to solve this problem I was having.
The fastest way was to stop using the Kaiser Insurance and switch to a Santa Clara County program, the SSA deduction problem would be solved. As the Santa Clara Family Heath program would cover all the costs in medical expanse. Despite numerous help from my apartment manager or my son in law, and with me running around many places it was unsolvable, this person had seen where the problem was and was able to solve it in short time as he was the professional.
As I thank him profusely, this was not the only reason for so. The warm expression he had along with answering my questions one by one, understanding what the other party wanted, and wanting to give better solution and how he spoke with the person in charge. He had reminded me of someone that would “if someone requests to walk 5 miles with you, take the extra 10 miles together” as Jesus had said.
In short time, I would receive my new membership greeting along with the card. Also a business card with his name was given incase if I ever get questions.
Before I left the office, Mr. Jerome said I would need to meet again to solve one last thing. This time the meeting would be lengthy so the appointment was set on the 16th of September from 1:30PM~4:30PM. It was to file a complaint against Kaiser for taking so much money from the SSA. I was curious and surprised why he would want to solve even that.
I was humbled and wanted bow my head as he walked with me and my wife out of the office to the office lobby, shaking my hand and wishing me farewell.
(September 17th 2016)
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The Strange Acorn Tree 
Mr. John Jerome